JULY 15, 1916 



If desired, partly filled sections may be plarod over the ("o^ony, and tlie honey from the ■w^et combs used 

 to finish them up. 



finishing to malice them salable are put in a 

 section suioer and iDlaeed over the colony 

 of bees on the stand, while the others are 

 put in section-supers also with no separa- 

 tors, first uncapping any that may be cap- 

 ped. We put the supers on the stand the 

 same as the extracting-supers. The honey 

 in these will be carried by the bees to finish 

 up those on the hive. 



It is a good plan to place a wet oxtract- 

 ing-super below eai Ii tier of comb honey 



so as to get the bees started. Of course, 

 one can use wet extracting-combs only to 

 finish unfinished sections. There are many 

 sections that are practically filled, but not 

 capped. These, when finished, may class as 

 extras. Sections that are capped or partly 

 capped, but very thin, should be uncapped. 

 Otherwise the bees may build over the 

 cappings, or back of them, making an irreg- 

 ular surface. 

 Brussels. Out. 



THE SWARMING PROBLEM ANALYZED 



BY J. E. HAND 



1 am aware that my views upon this sub- 

 ject will not be regarded as orthodox doc- 

 trine ; but before judgment is rendered it is 

 the part of wisdom to weigh the evidence 

 carefully. For several years I have believ- 

 ed that the law of swarming is not correctly 

 interpreted; and this conviction became a 

 certainty when my mammoth 16-frame colo- 

 nies built queen-cells and began swarming 

 two weeks before clover harvest, with plenty 

 of room in brood-chambers. This experi- 

 ence led me to look for the real basic cause 

 of swarming, and resulted in the conclusions 

 recorded in this article. While we cannot 

 point with certainty to one independent 

 factor as a sole cause of swarming, it has 

 been ascertained that the queen is the piv- 

 otal point of the swarming problem. Give 

 me a queen of undiminished fecundity and 

 I will show you a non-swarming colony, 

 proving the correctness of my thesis. 



THE LAW OF QUEEN-CELL BUILDING. 



Queen-cells are inseparably associated 

 with swarming; therefore, before we can 

 fully comprehend the swarming phenome- 

 non we must have a correct interpretation 

 of the law of queen-cell building in its true 

 relation to the law of swarming. While 

 queen-cells are built under two different 

 conditions, the basic cause of all queen-cell 

 building is " supersedure," therefore there 

 is virtually one kind of queen-cells with a 

 manifold mission — 1, to supersede a failing 

 queen ; 2, to supersede a departed queen ; 

 3, to precipitate swarms. Nature has or- 

 dained that preconstructed cells shall be 

 built ui^on the slightest indication of di- 

 minished fecundity of the queen, and at no 

 other time. Queens are subject to the laws 

 of nature and physiology; therefore the 

 heavy strain upon the organs of reproduc- 

 tion required to develop several thousand 



